Stockton Dialysis Clinic

On this page

• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

Caring – this means we looked for evidence that the provider involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

This is the first rated assessment for this service. This key question has been rated Good:

This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as partners in their care.

We assessed 5 quality statements for this key question.

We saw that patients were treated with kindness, empathy and compassion. The service supported patients to make choices about their treatment and worked with them to achieve the best possible outcome for each individual. Staff also told us that they felt well-supported at work.

We have not awarded this service a score for Caring.

Find out about when we will not publish a key question score and what we look at when we assess Caring.

The provider always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

We observed good relationships between staff and patients whilst on site.

Patients we spoke to told us that they had a good rapport with staff and that staff were helpful and supportive.

No screens or curtains between treatment stations were in use during our visit, but they were available upon request.

We observed a supportive culture during our visit and heard from senior staff about how the clinic supports other local Diaverum dialysis services when required. We also heard from reception staff about support they have received from other clinics.

The provider treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

The clinic offered a range of different appointment times including an over-night dialysis option to support patient choice. We heard from the reception staff how they worked with patients to try to be as flexible as possible in offering alternative appointments if a person was unable to attend their treatment session.

All the information for patients that we saw was in English, but staff told us that they had access to translation services via the local trust if it was needed and could access resources in different languages from central services. There was also a pro-forma in place regarding the use of learning disability health passports or ‘this is me’ documentation for patients with dementia.

Patients were offered drinks and biscuits during their treatment, but we also observed patients being allowed to bring in their own preferred drinks or snacks and blankets to the unit for their comfort.

The provider promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

We saw individualised care plans in patient records during our visit. We also saw patients being supported to take responsibility for their own treatment if that was their choice.

The service had a shared-care process, which was supported by link nurses. We saw documentation, which showed that all patients had been offered shared care, and which elements individuals had opted to try. A booklet was provided, which went through each process step by step, and where competencies could be signed off for safety.

Patients were offered a range of treatment times across the week, including over-night dialysis and dialysis on Saturdays.

There were processes in place for ensuring that consent for treatment was fully informed, including separate consent and waiver forms where service-users opted to shorten their treatment time.

The provider listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

We observed patient care including communication exchanges during dialysis and saw staff were attentive, compassionate and responding to patients’ needs quickly.

Call bells and alarms were responded to quickly and effectively.

In the Perception of Care survey 2024, staff showing a caring attitude scored 6.5 out of 10, which was one of the highest scoring statements in the survey.

The provider cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff, and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care.

Staff told us that they felt supported at work. We heard from senior managers how the service worked with staff to try to adapt shifts and working patterns to support staff with work-life balance.

Staff survey results have been consistently good over the last three years though they were slightly lower than the average for the whole company. The most recent staff survey ‘My Opinion Counts’ in 2024 gave an overall score of 4.14 out of a possible 5. We saw an action plan to address concerns raised by staff in the survey.

Leaders shared with us how they supported staff with workplace adjustments when required, including supporting staff with shift patterns. We saw an example of a risk assessment for a member of staff with health concerns, which documented support put in place to enable the person to work when well enough.

We were told about measures that the human resources department were taking to support staff well-being and to work pro-actively with staff to reduce sickness. This included increased on-site access to staff from human resources to discuss any concerns.